by Diane Janes
‘Exactly so. The Home Sec’s reasoning is that the original judge and prosecuting counsel will know enough about the case to tell whether or not there’s anything in what the fellow is saying now.’
‘Not the defence barristers?’
‘Not the defence barristers. They have an interest you see. It would put them in an impossible situation, given that they were originally being paid to get the chap off.’
Hedley-Bruce considered this for a moment and thought of pointing out that the same must also be true of the prosecuting barristers, since they had been paid to get the man convicted in the first place, but he decided against, saying instead, ‘Well he was out of luck with Travers Humphreys, because he’s presiding over a trial in Leicester.’
‘But luckily the two counsel and the DPP are available and they are due to arrive here at around midday or just after.’
‘And will the Home Sec be participating himself?’
‘No. Sir John doesn’t feel that he is as fully briefed on the case as the legal chappies – and anyway, he has a pretty full diary today. You are to make the arrangements for luncheon by the way. Just for the DPP and the two barristers.’
‘Not for the prison governor?’
‘Not for the prison governor. He won’t be party to the discussion.’
‘Just the errand boy,’ murmured the younger man. He liked old Featherstone, but he did wish the chap wouldn’t keep repeating things – talk about Little Sir Echo. He sometimes wondered whether Featherstone had been so long in the service that he had become completely expert in never allowing the mask to slip, or whether he just habitually accepted the official line. Perhaps it never occurred to him that even if not fully conversant with the ins and outs of the case, Sir John must surely know a lot more about it than the average man in the street, and moreover represented – on the face of it at least – a completely neutral perspective. He’s ducking it, Hedley-Bruce thought. And in his place, I might just do the same. It was an awful responsibility, having to decide whether a man was going to live or going to die.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Monday 5 February 1934
Martin’s Nest, Holywell Green, Yorkshire
‘For goodness sake, Miss Florence, have you got ants in your pants?’ Nanny’s unseemly imprecation against fidgeting came unbidden into her head, as Florence shifted the cushions and tried to settle to reading the morning paper. The expression had invariably conjured up such a horrid mental image, that it had always made poor Florence want to wriggle all the more.
Her early childhood had been similarly darkened by such exclamations as: ‘This drawer looks as if a bunch of rattle snakes has been through it,’ and more terrifying still, ‘If you don’t leave that nose alone, the Bogey Man will come for you tonight.’
The Bogey Man.
Lately her nights had been haunted by far worse – that was when she had managed to get off to sleep at all. When she looked at herself in the dressing table mirror, she could see tell-tale dark shadows beneath her eyes. She must not think of her childhood, because whereas at one time the thought of Freddie tormenting her, as he had so often done, could still make her hot with indignation (he had been Nanny’s favourite and always got away with murder) now it just made her want to cry. Poor silly, besotted Freddie, who had even pretended to be older than he was, in order to impress Dorothy Middlemost. Oh Freddie, Freddie, why ever were you such a fool as to marry her?
But of course, Florence thought, everyone – herself included – had initially fallen under Dolly’s spell. She was so handsome, so lively. That sharp wit and such energy, with a willingness to throw herself into anything and everything, whether it be organising a tea party for war veterans, or a family game of charades at Christmas. ‘You should see her out hunting,’ Freddie had once told his sister. ‘She’s absolutely fearless.’
Florence had long ago admitted to herself that she too had, at one time, been in complete awe of her sister-in-law. Dolly was so confident and clever; but gradually she had begun to sense, rather than see, another side to Dolly. There was something steely at her core. A hard, determined streak which meant that Dolly was going to get what she wanted, even if it meant squashing flat the hopes and aspirations of everyone else, or bending the will of others to her own.
Florence had once remarked to her father that, ‘If Brown did shoot Freddie, then it was only because Dolly told him to.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ her father had said gravely.
That had been in the early days, when she and her father could still bring themselves to speak to one another of the tragedy. Later she had begun to avoid the subject and in the past few days she had stopped speaking of it altogether, trying to spare him, though she supposed that he was still suffering in silence, just as she did. At breakfast this morning, they had scarcely exchanged a word again. After keeping his eyes on his plate of kedgeree, then focussing on the buttering of his toast, as if the mastery of it was the most complicated thing in the world, he had hidden behind his newspaper, until the time came to set out for the factory, when he had awkwardly brushed the top of her head with a kiss and remarked gruffly that it was another bitterly cold day.
Since his departure she had been unable to settle to anything. It would be even worse tomorrow, she thought. The hour set was nine o’clock. She had heard that there was to be a service at the Mission Hall in Huddersfield, led by Reverend Spencer. Ernest’s family would be there and some of his friends, praying for him at the end. Florence thought that perhaps she would go to church quietly herself, later in the day, after it was over. Not today though. She did not want to risk leaving the house today, in case word came for her to go to the prison. If not that, then perhaps there would be a letter for her. She pictured Ernest as she had often done in the last few days, standing framed in the prison doorway. Had she just imagined that look of sympathy in his eyes? Or had that momentary sense of a connection been merely her own fancy?
Unusually, the telephone had already rung twice that morning, but the calls had both represented routine household matters: each insistent summons of the bell making her heart race all for nothing. First post had brought her only a dressmaker’s bill and a postcard from a friend, who was staying with relatives in Edinburgh. There was still another delivery to come. If Ernest had written to her and his letter had made the early morning post in Leeds, it would surely be through the letter box by tea time.
Though she could not possibly have explained why, and in spite of the fact that he had never sent her a letter before, Florence suddenly felt sure that Ernest was going to write to her, before the end.
Chapter Twenty Eight
His Majesty’s Prison, Armley, Leeds, Yorkshire
5 February 1934
Dear Miss Morton,
I asked permission for you to visit me today, but as that is not possible, I am writing to you instead. Last time you came here, you asked me to tell you the truth and said that I was holding something back. You were right about that. I have decided that you have a right to know what happened that night and I don’t want to die with a lot of lies on my conscience.
When I came back from Greetland that evening, with the cow that wasn’t wanted, I dropped my friend, Mr Wright, at his pub in Tadcaster, then drove straight home. I drove into the yard and Dolly was standing at the trough, filling up water buckets, just as I always said she was. As I got out of the horsebox, she came across and started to help me with unloading the cow. I told her about it’s not being wanted, and she started telling me that she’d been swimming at Wetherby, with one of her men friends, but I wasn’t interested in all that. I interrupted her and asked where Fred was, and she didn’t answer me directly, but instead said why did I want to know or something of the sort, so I told her that I wanted to tell him about the cow, and then I wanted to get finished as soon as possible, because I wanted to go back into Tadcaster, to meet my friends.
/> She said, ‘Oh, do you?’ a bit sarcastic like.
We’d got the cow across into the mistal by then and I was tethering the beast, when she said, ‘Freddie’s in the garage. I shot him, when he came home just now.’
She had talked about getting him out of the way before, and it was silly talk like that which had caused me to leave in June, only that time she had persuaded me to come back and said that she had only been joking. She’d promised that there’d be no more of that sort of talk, and that we could remain just friends, if I came back. So when she came out with it this time, I couldn’t tell to start with whether she was serious or not, but her saying it made me mad. I grabbed hold of her by the shoulders and asked her if she was joking and she said, ‘No. I heard the car coming down the drive and I was waiting for him. Freddie’s still in the car, in the garage, and the shot gun is in the wash house.’ I’d still got hold of her and when she said that, I shook her and she fell on the floor.
I’d never handled her roughly before and it made her angry. I hadn’t intended for her to go down and I reached out a hand to help her up, but she didn’t take it. She got up by herself and said: ‘You have just done something you will be sorry for.’ Then she walked out into the yard, furious like, and called out for Ann and I heard the girl answer her almost straight away.
I could hardly start asking her about Fred with Ann there, so I got some hay for the cow and then I went round to the garage to see if it was really true, and there was your brother, slumped in the driver’s seat of the car. I could see right off that he was dead, and if it’s any comfort, I think it must have been quick and him not suffering.
Then I went and checked in the wash house and there was the gun, just as she had said. I didn’t know what to do. I thought of ringing for the police, there and then, but I could already see that I was in a funny position. There was Dolly, cool as a cucumber and capable of saying anything. I decided the best thing was to ask her what she intended to do, so I went into the kitchen to find her, but there was only Ann Houseman in the room and she said Dolly was upstairs. It was obvious that the girl didn’t know anything was amiss, because she was boiling up fruit and sugar in a big pan, humming to herself, just like it was any old evening.
I asked her to fetch Dolly and she went upstairs and then came back to say that Dolly would be down in a minute. Of course I needed to speak to Dolly on her own, as she knew perfectly well, but she was still mad with me for laying hands on her, so she played me up and made me stand there and tell her all about the cow, which she already knew about, because I’d told her about bringing it back, when we were first out in the yard.
I didn’t know what to do next, so I went back outside to do my chores. Whatever else has happened, the usual jobs have still got to be done and I thought that Dolly would calm down and come outside to talk with me where we couldn’t be overheard. She generally came out of her own accord to help put the ducks away for the night, but when she didn’t come, I went in and asked her to help me. Of course I still couldn’t say anything to her, because Ann Houseman was there and instead of coming outside, Dolly came up with some excuse about waiting for a telephone call, so I went out again and got on with the job myself. I didn’t know at the time whether she was really waiting on a call, or if she was just avoiding having to talk with me. I was thinking that by now, perhaps she’d had time to realise what she had done, and was afraid of the consequences.
I was supposed to have been going back to Tadcaster, for I’d promised Mrs Littlewood a lift, but as you can guess, Mrs Littlewood went straight out of my head with this other business going on, and when I was asked about it later, I had to make up some stuff about it not being a definite arrangement and missing the bus, because otherwise I’d have had to explain why I had forgotten all about Mrs Littlewood, and I couldn’t do that.
I kept on going back into the kitchen, but young Ann was always in there, so I couldn’t say anything. It occurred to me that one way or another, it wasn’t a good thing to have that shotgun lying in the wash house with one live cartridge still in it, so at about half past nine, when it was getting dusk, I took the gun and loosed it off in the yard. I was desperate to talk to Dolly by then and I thought that hearing the shot might bring her to her senses, but when I went back into the kitchen, instead of Dolly there was only Ann Housman there, all wide eyed, and asking what the firing was, so I told her that I’d shot at a rat and went back out again.
No sooner had I gone back outside than there was Dolly, beckoning me round the corner of the house. She’d slipped out by the drawing room window. As you probably remember, there was mud found on the cushions of the window seat, and I guess that got there when Dolly was going in and out.
‘You mustn’t say anything,’ she said to me. ‘You have to help me, for the sake of the child.’ She meant Baby Diana, who she’d always said was mine. ‘What would become of the child?’ she said. ‘If anything were to happen to me? You would not be able to take her.’
I remember, I just looked at her. She was pleading with me. She kept on saying, ‘You have to help me.’
In the end, I agreed to help her for the sake of the child. Bairns are so precious. I’ve buried a few of my own, so I should know. Please try to understand the position I was in, Miss Morton. Nothing that I could do would alter the fact that Fred was gone and anyway I was hardly thinking straight. I had seen his body, lying there in the car, but I still couldn’t believe it was really happening.
‘We can pretend it was an accident,’ she said. ‘You get the gun back into the cupboard. Later on, when Ann and I have gone to bed, you must set fire to the garage. Once the body’s burned, no one will know what really happened.’
Thinking about it since, I reckon she’d got it all planned out from the very beginning.
I said, ‘I can’t do that. It’s bloody arson, that is, and what about the stock and all?’
‘We can let them out. None of the animals will come to any harm if we’re quick about it. I will stay awake and come out to help as soon as you give the alarm,’ she said.
‘A man can end up doing time in prison for stunts like this,’ I said.
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘They’ve got nothing on you. Everyone will think it’s an accident. We’ll both tell them about Freddie coming back drunk sometimes, and sleeping it off down in the garage. And don’t you think that I will see to it that you are all right? There isn’t a magistrate in the district that I’m not on good terms with.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You just hang on a minute.’ I wanted her to wait, but she was off again round the side of the house, before I had time to say anything more, and anyway, I thought I could hear that a horse had got loose, so I went back to the stables to see what was up.
What with seeing to the horse, and fetching down another harness and all, I never heard the phone ring. I saw Dolly and the young woman dashing across the hall, looking all stirred up, but I paid them no mind, until I went back inside with the gun. So far as that was concerned, I didn’t mind cleaning it and putting it away, because there’s no crime in that, is there?
When I sat down in the kitchen with the gun, I made it clear that I wanted to speak to Dolly on her own, but that Ann girl wouldn’t go. I never realised until afterwards that Dolly had probably told her not to. Both myself and Dolly were on edge and the girl must have seen that there was something going on by then, but of course she didn’t know what, and afterwards it would have been easy for Dolly to work on her I should imagine, and to get things all twisted around in her mind. They both carried on living under the same roof right up until the trial, so there would have been plenty of chance to talk together and get their story straight, so to speak. I daresay that I did look a bit mad, or wild at times that night, because it’s not every day you’ve a body out in the garage and there’s someone trying to embroil you in a mad scheme to get rid of it.
At the trial, the silly
young thing even said that she and Dolly had been together the whole time, but that can’t have been right, because Dolly came outside and talked to me when she told young Ann that she’d been hiding under the dining room table, and at some point, someone took a knife to those telephone wires, and that wasn’t me. I suppose Dolly did it, because she was afraid of someone taking it into their head to phone the police and get them there before the garage went up in flames and poor Fred’s body was destroyed.
It would have been easy for Dolly to have taken the knife out of the drawer when the girl wasn’t looking, but it was probably more risky to try and smuggle it back inside again, so I suppose that’s why she left it out in the barrow in the yard, where it was found next day.
At one time she said to me, pointed like, that someone had called on the telephone, but if she was hinting that it might give Ann Houseman ideas about calling out on it, then I didn’t grasp her meaning, which I suppose is why she had to take care of the telephone wires herself.
At about half past ten, I said that I was going to put the Essex away, and I went outside, but I didn’t move the car just then. To be honest, I lost my nerve. Something in me didn’t want to go down to the garage, and so long as I didn’t go down there, then if the police or anyone did turn up, I thought that I could still pretend not to know that Fred was in there. All through the evening, Dolly had kept up this pretence that she was expecting Fred home any minute, and that she couldn’t think where he’d got to, and so on and so forth, and I’d gone along with her, because if anyone had come and found that he’d been there all along, I could just say that I hadn’t realised that he’d come back.
After the police got involved they tried to find out where he’d been later that evening, after he left the Boot and Shoe, supposedly at about quarter to nine. They never seemed to think of him being there in the garage all along. What must really have happened is that he left Ma Jackson’s pub at seven o’clock, as she always said he did, then drove straight to the Boot and Shoe. It’s only a couple of minutes between the two. Frank Cawood admitted at the trial that he didn’t really know what time it was when Fred came in, nor when he left, and the fact is that he must have arrived home at about ten to eight, while Ann Houseman was out on an errand and I was still on my way back from Greetland. The reason no one heard that first shot is that there was no one but Fred and Dolly there when the gun was fired, and by the time myself and Ann got home, Fred was already dead.